Aristotle's Theory of Substance The Categories and Metaphysics Zeta

by Wedin, Michael V.

• ISBN13: 9780199253081
• ISBN10: 0199253080
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-12-12
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Aristotle's views on the fundamental nature of reality are usually taken to be inconsistent. The two main sources for these views are the Categories and the central books of the Metaphysics, particularly book Zeta. In the early theory of the Categories the basic entities of the world areconcrete objects such as Socrates: Aristotle calls them 'primary substances'. But the later theory awards this title to the forms of concrete objects. Michael Wedin proposes a compatibilist solution to this long-standing puzzle, arguing that Aristotle is engaged in quite different projects in thetwo works. The theory of Metaphysics Zeta is meant to explain central features of the standing doctrine of the Categories, and so presupposes the essential truth of the early theory. The Categories offers a theory of underlying ontological configurations, while book Zeta gives form the status ofprimary substance because it is primarily the form of a concrete object that explains its nature, and this form is the substance of the object. So when the late theory identifies primary substance with form, it appeals to an explanatory primacy that is quite distinct from the ontological primacythat dominates the Categories. Wedin's new interpretation thus allows us to see the two treatises as complementing each other: they are parts of a unified history of substance.

Author Biography

Michael Wedin is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Davis.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(11)
The Plan of the Categories	11	(27)
Aristotle's Three Onymies	12	(4)
Some Suggestions on the Role of the Onymies	16	(5)
The Onymies as Grouping Principles	21	(6)
Two Ways to Get the List of Categories	27	(2)
A Pair of Problems	29	(9)
Nonsubstantial Individuals	38	(29)
The Standard Version	38	(1)
Owen's New Orthodoxy	39	(4)
The New Improved Orthodoxy	43	(8)
The Revised Standard Version	51	(3)
Independent Evidence in the Categories	54	(5)
The Testimony of Metaphysics Z.1	59	(6)
The New Revised Standard Version	65	(2)
Commitment and Configuration in the Categories	67	(57)
The Meta-Ontology of the Categories as a Theory of Per Se Being	67	(6)
Two-Step Dependence	73	(8)
Asymmetry	81	(1)
Asymmetry and the Nonsubstantial	82	(4)
The Status of Nonsubstantial Universals	86	(6)
The Status of Secondary Substances	92	(5)
Inflation: Species as General Objects	97	(5)
Elimination: Species as Linguistic Items	102	(6)
Equivocation: Waffling on Existence	108	(3)
A Strategy for Demotion: Existence Conditions	111	(10)
Idealization in the Categories: A Transitional Remark	121	(3)
Tales of the Two Treatises	124	(33)
An Argument for Outright Incompatibility	124	(5)
The Alleged Failure of the Categories Account of a Subject	129	(9)
On Two Philosophical Arguments for the Subjecthood of Form	138	(6)
An `Aristotelian' Argument for the Subjecthood of Form	144	(8)
How Not to Smuggle Matter into the Categories	152	(5)
The Structure and Substance of Substance	157	(40)
The Categories Framework in Metaphysics Z.1	158	(8)
Subjects and Substance in Z.3	166	(6)
The Priority Argument	172	(4)
The Reductio Argument	176	(13)
The Auxiliary Argument	189	(8)
Form as Essence	197	(61)
A Transitional Problem	197	(3)
Some `Logical' Remarks about Essence	200	(5)
The New Primacy Passage	205	(2)
The Elimination Argument	207	(3)
The Notion of a τoδε τι	210	(9)
The New Primacy Argument	219	(11)
Essence as the Form of a Genus (γενoυσ ειδoσ)	230	(7)
The γενoυσ ειδoσ and Formal Differentiae	237	(10)
Per Se2 Compounds and Compound Properties	247	(11)
Zeta 6 on the Immediacy of Form	258	(31)
Setting the Problem	258	(4)
Formulating the Zeta 6 Thesis	262	(3)
The Range of the thesis	265	(5)
Having versus Being an Essence	270	(5)
The Problem of Regress	275	(7)
Immediacy and Explanation	282	(3)
A Worry about the Dilution of Substance	285	(4)
The Purification of Form	289	(54)
The Structure of Z.10 and 11	291	(5)
The Correspondence Thesis	296	(4)
Varieties of Parts and Wholes	300	(4)
The Sophisticated Position	304	(10)
Definability and Particular Compounds	314	(3)
From Priority to Purity	317	(2)
Z.11 on the Purification of Form	319	(2)
Aristotle's Thought Experiment	321	(6)
Socrates the Younger on the Soul of Man	327	(8)
In Defense of Purity	335	(6)
A Transitional Remark	341	(2)
Generality and Compositionality: Z.13's Worries about Form	343	(62)
Worries about Fit: Continuity versus Autonomy	344	(10)
Links to Z.10 and 11	354	(6)
The Role of Z.13 (-16)	360	(2)
The Arguments of Z.13 and their Target(s)	362	(6)
The Master Argument	368	(10)
The No-Part Argument	378	(7)
Complexity Lost: Z.13's End Dilemma	385	(5)
Complexity Regained: Z.16 on Dual Complexity	390	(15)
Form and Explanation	405	(50)
Z.17's Fresh Start	405	(3)
The Organization of Z.17	408	(1)
How to Ask `Why?'	409	(9)
Weak Proscription and the Causal Role of Form	418	(9)
Explanation and the Purity of Form	427	(9)
Logical Heterogeneity and the Immediacy of the Form--Matter Connection	436	(5)
Heaps, Wholes, and the Transformation of Elements	441	(8)
A Philosophical Argument for Purity	449	(3)
Last Rights on Primacy	452	(3)
Bibliography	455	(10)
Index Locorum	465	(6)
General Index	471